Famous Speeches: Ida B. Wells, “Lynching, Our National Crime” (1909)
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American Citizenship:
The Case of
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Famous Speeches: Ida B. Wells,
¡°Lynching, Our National Crime¡±
(1909)
Newsla Article
By Ida B. Wells, adapted by Newsela staff
Word Count 1664
Level 1140L
Ida B. Wells Barnett, in a photograph by Mary Garrity from around 1893. Photo from:
Wikimedia Commons. Marry Garrity/via Google Images
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Editor¡¯s Note: Ida B. Wells was a leading figure in the anti-lynching
campaign in the United States beginning in the 1890s. Wells later became
a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP). The following speech was delivered by Wells at the
National Negro Conference in New York City in 1909.
¡°Lynching Is Color-Line Murder¡±
The lynching record for a quarter of a century merits the thoughtful study of
the American people. It presents three salient facts: First, lynching is colorline murder. Second, crimes against women is the excuse, not the cause. Third,
it is a national crime and requires a national remedy. Proof that lynching
follows the color line is to be found in the statistics which have been kept
for the past 25 years. During the few years preceding this period and while
frontier law existed, the executions showed a majority of white victims. Later,
however, as law courts and authorized judiciary extended into the far West,
lynch law rapidly lessened. Its white victims became few and far between.
70
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Just as the lynch-law regime came to a close in the West, a new mob
movement started in the South.
This was wholly political, its purpose being to suppress the colored vote by
intimidation and murder. Thousands of assassins banded together under the
name of Ku Klux Klans, ¡°Midnight Raiders,¡± ¡°Knights of the Golden Circle,¡± et
cetera. They spread a reign of terror by beating, shooting and killing colored
people. In a few years, the purpose was accomplished, and the black vote
was suppressed. But mob murder continued. From 1882, in which year 52
were lynched, down to the present, lynching has been along the color line.
Mob murder increased yearly until in 1892 more than 200 victims were
lynched and statistics show that 3,284 men, women and children have been
put to death in this quarter of a century. During the last 10 years from 1899
to 1908 inclusive the number lynched was 959. Of this number 102 were white,
while the colored victims numbered 857. No other nation, civilized or savage,
burns its criminals; only under that Stars and Stripes is the human holocaust
possible. Twenty-eight human beings burned at the stake, one of them a
woman and two of them children, is the awful indictment against American
civilization ¡ª the gruesome tribute which the nation pays to the color line.
Why is mob murder permitted by a Christian nation? What is the cause
of this awful slaughter? This question is answered almost daily ¡ª always
the same shameless falsehood that ¡°Negroes are lynched to protect
womanhood.¡± Standing before a Chautauqua assemblage, John Temple
Graves, at once champion of lynching and apologist for lynchers, said: ¡°The
mob stands today as the most potential bulwark between the women of
the South and such a carnival of crime as would infuriate the world and
precipitate the annihilation of the Negro race.¡± This is the never-varying
answer of lynchers and their apologists. All know that it is untrue. The
cowardly lyncher revels in murder, then seeks to shield himself from public
execration by claiming devotion to woman. But truth is mighty and the
lynching record discloses the hypocrisy of the lyncher as well as his crime.
The Springfield, Illinois, mob rioted for two days in August 1908, the militia of
the entire state was called out, two men were lynched, hundreds of people
driven from their homes, all because a white woman said a Negro assaulted
her. A mad mob went to the jail and tried to lynch the victim of her charge.
Not being able to find him, they proceeded to pillage and burn the town
and to lynch two innocent men. Later, after the police had found that the
woman¡¯s charge was false, she published a retraction, the indictment was
dismissed and the intended victim discharged. But the lynched victims were
dead. Hundreds were homeless and Illinois was disgraced.
¡°The Only Remedy Is An Appeal To Law¡±
71
As a final and complete refutation of the charge that lynching is occasioned
by crimes against women, a partial record of lynchings is cited; 285 persons
were lynched for causes as follows: Unknown cause, 92; no cause, 10; race
prejudice, 49; miscegenation, 7; informing, 12; making threats, 11; keeping
saloon, 3; practicing fraud, 5; practicing voodooism, 1; refusing evidence, 2;
political causes, 5; disputing, 1; disobeying quarantine regulations, 2; slapping
a child, 1; turning state¡¯s evidence, 3; protecting a Negro, 1; to prevent giving
evidence, 1; knowledge of larceny, 1; writing letter to white woman, 1; asking
white woman to marry, 1; jilting girl, 1; having smallpox, 1; concealing criminal,
2; threatening political exposure, 1; self-defense, 6; cruelty; 1; insulting
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language to woman, 5; quarreling with white man, 2; colonizing Negroes, 1;
throwing stones, 1; quarreling, 1; gambling, 1.
Is there a remedy, or will the nation confess that it cannot protect its citizens
at home as well as abroad? Various remedies have been suggested to
abolish the lynching infamy. Year after year, however, the butchery of men,
women and children continues in spite of plea and protest.
Agitation, though helpful, will not alone stop the crime. Year after year
statistics are published, meetings are held, resolutions are adopted and
yet lynchings go on. Public sentiment does measurably decrease the sway
of mob law. However, the irresponsible bloodthirsty criminals who swept
through the streets of Springfield beat an inoffensive law-abiding citizen to
death in one part of the town. In another, they tortured and shot to death a
man who for threescore years had made a reputation for honesty, integrity
and sobriety, had raised a family, and had accumulated property. These mob
members were not deterred from their heinous crimes by either education or
agitation.
The only certain remedy is an appeal to law. Lawbreakers must be made to
know that human life is sacred and that every citizen of this country is first
a citizen of the United States and secondly a citizen of the state in which
he belongs. This nation must assert itself and protect its federal citizenship
at home as well as abroad. The strong arm of the government must reach
across state lines whenever unbridled lawlessness defies state laws. It must
give to the individual under the Stars and Stripes the same measure of
protection it gives to him when he travels in foreign lands.
Federal protection of American citizenship is the remedy for lynching.
Foreigners are rarely lynched in America. If, by mistake, one is lynched, the
national government quickly pays the damages. The recent agitation in
California against the Japanese compelled this nation to recognize that
federal power must yet assert itself to protect the nation from the treason
of sovereign states. Thousands of American citizens have been put to death
and no president has yet raised his hand in effective protest. In contrast, a
simple insult to a native of Japan was quite sufficient to stir the government
at Washington to prevent the threatened wrong. If the government has power
to protect a foreigner from insult, certainly it has power to save a citizen¡¯s life.
¡°We Should Create A Shield To The Innocent¡±
The practical remedy has been more than once suggested in Congress.
Senator Gallinger, of New Hampshire, called for an investigation ¡°with the
view of ascertaining whether there is a remedy for lynching which Congress
may apply.¡± The Senate Committee has under consideration a bill drawn
by A. E. Pillsbury, formerly attorney general of Massachusetts. It provides
for federal prosecution of lynchers in cases where the state fails to protect
citizens or foreigners. Both of these resolutions indicate that the attention of
the nation has been called to this phase of the lynching question.
72
As a final word, it would be a beginning in the right direction if this
conference acted to establish a bureau for the investigation and publication
of the details of every lynching. Such action would indicate to the public that
an influential body of citizens has made it a duty to give the widest publicity
to the facts in each case; that it will make an effort to secure expressions of
Cyclorama and
American Citizenship:
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American Identity
opinion all over the country against lynching for the sake of the country¡¯s fair
name; and lastly, but by no means least, to try to influence the daily papers
of the country to refuse to become accessory to mobs either before or after
the fact.
Several of the greatest riots and most brutal burnt offerings of the mobs
have been suggested and incited by the daily papers of the offending
community. If the newspaper, which suggests lynching in its accounts of
an alleged crime, could be held legally as well as morally responsible for
reporting that ¡°threats of lynching were heard¡±; or, ¡°it is feared that if the
guilty one is caught, he will be lynched¡±; or, ¡°there were cries of ¡®lynch him,¡¯
and the only reason the threat was not carried out was because no leader
appeared,¡± a long step toward a remedy will have been taken.
In a multitude of counsel, there is wisdom. Upon the grave question
presented by the slaughter of innocent men, women and children there
should be an honest, courageous conference of patriotic, law-abiding
citizens. Such a body should be anxious to punish crime promptly, impartially
and by due process of law. They must also make life, liberty and property
secure against mob rule.
Time was when lynching appeared to be sectional. Now, though, it is national
¡ª a blight upon our nation, mocking our laws and disgracing our Christianity.
¡°With malice toward none but with charity for all¡± let us undertake the work
of making the ¡°law of the land¡± effective and supreme upon every foot of
American soil. We should create a shield to the innocent; and to the guilty,
promise punishment swift and sure.
73
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